Rosencrantz & Gilbertstern Are Dead
by lilien passe
Summary: Surreptitious fluff. Or as close as I seem to be able to get. A title that has little to do with the content. A potential prequel to "Die Mauern", but need not be construed as such.


-Author's Notes

If you are unfamiliar with the work of Tom Stoppard, most notably _Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead_, then I suggest you head out and read it as soon as you can. And then I suggest you give Mister Stoppard five dollars. Because if anyone deserves five dollars, it's Tom Stoppard.

This fic sprang from an urge to write something that would not require the tags "drama" and "angst". And also to pimp out awesome _R&GaD_ quotes at every available opportunity. This could be seen as a prequel to "Die Mauern", but doesn't really connect in any concrete way.

Warnings: Swearing and anthropomorphized countries of same gender having light makeouts with each other. If this doesn't sound like your cup of tea, do the smart thing and go get another kind of tea.

Disclaimer: No matter how much I pray to the tooth fairy, she still tells me I don't own APH. Also, quotes lifted from Tom Stoppard's work, whether in their entirety or in a modified form, are the original author's rightful property, and are being used in a non-commercial manner for reasons that I'm sure he'd rather not know about.

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_Rosencrantz & Gilbertstern Are Dead_

"Hey. West."

Gilbert's muffled voice fell upon deaf ears as Ludwig attempted to bury himself deeper into his book. A few moments of blessed silence passed before the shorter man called out again.

"Hey. West."

"What?" Ludwig muttered in irritation. He needed to concentrate. He kept reading the same sentence over and over again. Every time Prussia opened his goddamn mouth. The blonde heard the other man snicker softly from across the room.

"Hey. East."

"What?!?" Ludwig snapped, tearing his eyes off the page to glare at the other nation, whose lithe form was draped across the other couch.

Gilbert's mouth quirked upwards in an amused smirk, "Good God, man. Don't you discriminate at all?"

"If you're so bored, find some other way to keep yourself entertained," Ludwig said, opening his book again with a bit more force than necessary.

"Keep myself entertained?" Gilbert raised one aristocratic eyebrow, "With you sittin' right there? Didn't know you were into voyeurism, West."

Ludwig felt his face flame, but kept his eyes firmly fixed on his book. He knew Kafka was a bad choice. Across the room, Gilbert gave a strained sigh of irritation at being ignored before he tried again.

"Do you remember when you were a kid? And I used to take you on walks an' shit?", Gilbert said, amusement speckling his words.

The other man frowned. "You say 'walks', but all I remember is you escorting me to the center of some battlefield, handing me a sword and telling me to start hacking away at people's shins," Ludwig replied dryly, turning a page in what he thought was a poignant way of indicating to the other man that they were not having this conversation.

Gilbert threw back his head and laughed, the sound echoing faintly through the dimly lit library. "Oh yeah! An' there was that other time that I taught you how to survive in the wilderness…"

"You stole my clothes and kicked me down a ravine into the middle of the Black Forest."

"Swimming…"

"Tied rocks to my ankles."

"Hunting…"

"I was the target, you ass."

The last echoes of Gilbert's laughter faded away, and Ludwig surreptitiously glanced up from his book. The other man had shifted to lie on his back, lacing his fingers behind his head. Gilbert's platinum head was tilted back as he gazed upwards at the embossed ceiling, the dying embers of the fire illuminating the hint of a smile still playing around his lips. Ludwig's eyes traced the outline of that familiar form, his breath inexplicably catching in his throat before he tore his gaze away to focus again on his book, mentally berating himself for lingering.

For a few moments, the only sound that filled the room was the soft crackle of the weakening fire in the hearth. Ludwig had finally gotten his heart to resume its normal pace, when suddenly Gilbert sat up, and turned to face the German.

"Chariot or Mercedes?"

Ludwig blinked. "What?"

"Chariot or Mercedes?"

"…Have you become completely unhinged?"

Gilbert waved a hand in exasperation, "No, dumbass. Chariot or Mercedes. Which would you rather drive?"

Ludwig barely resisted the urge to throw his substantially heavy book across the room into the other man's forehead. "If you can't just force yourself to sit in silence for two-"

"Red or Green?"

"You can't just-"

"Top half fish, bottom half woman, or top half woman, bottom half fish?"

"…is that even possib-"

"You gotta answer at least one, West."

"If you're going to insist on continuing this idiocy, then-"

"What happens to us after we fall?"

Ludwig stopped mentally calculating projectile trajectories and looked up at the other nation. Prussia was leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees, his eyes half-lidded as he scrutinized the blonde; a disturbingly serious expression shadowing his face. Ludwig lowered his throwing arm, and sighed heavily, "I'm not in the mood to discuss pithy religious philosophies with you right now. Perhaps another time."

"I'm not talkin' about what happens to _them_. I mean us. As we are." He turned his head to the side, staring absentmindedly out the window at the mist laden outside air, reaching out to trace meandering patterns onto the fogged up window. "When we fall, is that it? Do we just fade away like the echo of some once grand, big-ass explosion? Do you think they'll even remember us?"

Ludwig slowly closed his book, resting it on the cushion next to him. "What is this 'us' you keep going on about?"

"You don't think we have anythin' in common, you 'n me?"

"What could we possibly have in common except our situation?"

A heavy silence fell over the two, before Gilbert spoke again, his finger scratching out the words he had traced on the window's surface. "Supposing we go on forever. Eternity's a terrible thought. I mean, where's it gonna end?" He rose to his feet, stretching his arms to the ceiling, and quirked a glance at Ludwig, who remained seated on the couch.

The German's brows were furrowed in thought, and he toyed distractedly with the cross at his throat. After a moment's pause, he spoke. "I wonder… if it would really be such an awful thing. Who are we to think that anything would change if we were to fall, or to say that nothing would change should we remain as we are?" Ludwig snorted softly, a derisive grin edging its way onto his face. "Sorry," he said, shooting a longing glance to his relatively simpler, discarded book. "I don't think I'm cut out to sit here blithely debating the endless what-ifs that seem to enjoy taking up space inside that head of yours."

Gilbert smirked and strode over to the other side of the room where he promptly sprawled out on the couch, pillowing his head on Ludwig's knee. He reached up to lace his fingers in the blonde's hair, mussing it out of its normally perfect arrangement.

The blonde's eyes widened, and when he spoke, his voice betrayed a slight tremor that would have caused him no small amount of shame under different circumstances. "G-Gilbert, what are you-"

"You're such a stupid ass," Gilbert muttered, cutting the other man off and giving Ludwig's hair an affectionate tug. "But that's enough, I suppose."

He moved his hand to rest on the nape of the younger man's neck, before slowly propping himself up to gently press his lips against the other man's.

Ludwig gave a startled gasp, and he quickly jerked away, running the back of his hand across his mouth in shocked disbelief. Gilbert just watched him with a slightly amused expression on his face, fingers idly tracing on the nape of Ludwig's neck the patterns he had etched earlier into the frosted glass. Ludwig opened his mouth to yell at the other man, to fall back into the same pattern they had blindly, religiously followed from the moment they met.

But no words would come.

Ludwig tried to push his mind in vain to deliver something, anything to break through this sudden and unexpected loss of speech, when Gilbert let out an abrupt and stifled bark of laughter. "Stop tryin' so hard, dumbass," he drawled, gently butting his forehead against the taller man's. "You don't always have to fill in the blanks with words. Even if they are all you have to go on."

Ludwig's tired brain was in the midst of scrambling to come up with a response when Gilbert's deft fingers suddenly halted. The platinum haired man shifted to reach under his back, and pulled out Ludwig's discarded and forgotten book.

Gilbert studied the cover. "Kafka, huh," he mused out loud, letting his other hand fall away from Ludwig's shoulder to turn open the first page. He tilted his head back to look up at Ludwig. "This any good?"

Ludwig paused before reaching out and plucking the book from the older man's grasp. "I don't know. It's something from Roderich's house he lent me. But I've yet to make it past the first sentence," he admitted ruefully, running one finger down the spine of the book.

Gilbert reached up from his sprawled position and tapped the cover. "Well, read it then. We're not gettin' anywhere at this rate," he said, flashing the other man an expectant grin.

The blonde gave a soft sigh, before slowly flipping the book open to its first page. Gilbert's head lay heavy on his knee, a solid, undeviating presence. The older man's chest evenly rose and fell with his breathing; eyes sliding delicately shut as Ludwig cleared his throat and began to steadily read in his soft baritone.

_Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte…_


End file.
